


Yellow's Just Your Color

by writingmonsters



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Gen, Harry Potter Houses, Hufflepuff Pride, Tumblr Prompt, i still don't know how to tag things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 07:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14039532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/writingmonsters
Summary: Cormoran and Robin bond over the Harry Potter Sorting Quiz and their mutual Hufflepuff status. (Rated for salty language)





	Yellow's Just Your Color

**Author's Note:**

> I begged Tumblr for prompts and cb-strike delivered with: "its a slow day at the office, robin stumbles upon a sorting quiz, they take it and bond over being mutual hufflepuffs. then they start sorting the people in their lives and robin realizes matthew is so boring, he’s a muggle" - unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to work "Matthew's a fucking muggle" into this ficlet without it feeling slightly forced. But I am wholeheartedly in agreement. Matthew falsified his answers so he'd get Ravenclaw and look impressive.

On the slow days, they go for hours at a time without saying a word.

These, strangely, are the days Robin loves best. She lets herself be consumed in the work; the clatter of the keys as she answers email inquiries and types invoices, the thick smell of the manila folders and the curls of cigarette smoke that Strike cannot manage to corral in the back office, the rush of Denmark Street beyond the windows.

She rinses the tea spoons in the kitchenette, and since the sunshine is so golden through the windows and the office is still standing for another day, Robin fixes the last of the morning coffee into a fresh mug – strong enough to wake the dead – and heads to replace the long-cold mug making stains on Cormoran's desk.

He doesn't glance up when she enters to swap the coffees – they've become too accustomed to one another for that now – and Robin takes the moment to steal a look at him. A real look. One that makes all kinds of soft, tight feelings squeeze behind her breastbone.

Somehow, he manages all at once to look wonderful and absolutely awful. The color is back in his face, thank God; the natural color, not the motley of greens and yellows and purples it had been after the last awful confrontation, and the skin around his eyes has softened with a decent week's sleep – none of the tight creases and finely lined anguish. As if to make up for his strangely unmarred face, the rest of Cormoran is in absolute disarray. Stubble rough and unkempt, his soft hair riotous and clothing badly crumpled. 

He looks good.  _Healthy_. Robin allows herself to think that much, terribly fond. She smooths the pad of her thumb over the band of the ring. It's just a smidge too tight now, squeezing around the joint of her finger when she's been typing too long. 

"Robin?"

"Mh?" She purses her lips and cants one hip against the edge of the scarred desk. It hadn't taken long to know Cormoran, to learn his tones – this is the voice that says  _is this bizarre or just unfathomable to me personally? Please clarify._  

"What the fuck is a Hufflepuff?"

And Robin Venetia Cunliffe (nee Ellacott) prides herself on being a professional and polite woman and not laughing at other people. Especially her boss and dear friend. But she can't help it. She explodes.

Two minutes later, when she has wiped the tears from her eyes and can breathe without giggling, Strike almost spoils the whole thing by asking her helplessly "what am I supposed to know about children's literature? Hufflepuff. Sounds like a particularly bad weed."

"It's  _Harry Potter_ ," Robin sniffles, absolutely beside herself. Oh, her face hurts she cannot possibly smile any wider. She has been delivered a  _gift_. "Hogwarts?"

"I'm sorry?" says Cormoran, raising an eyebrow.

"What's this sudden interest?" Robin asks, settling herself in for this discussion. Under the desk, she sees that he has detached the prosthesis, letting it stand loosely on its own in the leg of his trousers. 

"Ilsa."

"Ah."

" Been texting me about it all afternoon."  Cormoran  waggles his phone at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling delightfully.  "This is, apparently, the kind of thing she and Nick hold very serious debates about. They're both  Ravenclaws ," and Robin can hear the sarcastic quotation marks around the word "and evidently it's up for question as to whether I'm a  Ravenclaw  or a Hufflepuff."

Robin considers this for a moment, weighing the options in her mind. There's a valid point to be had for each, but she finds herself blurting a decisive "Hufflepuff."

His expression is unreadable. Robin watches as his thumb scrolls up through the flurry of Nick and Ilsa's group texts to settle on the black-and-yellow screenshot. "Valuing hard work, dedication, patience, honesty, and loyalty." He squints up at her. "You think so?" 

Robin nods. "Brains of a Ravenclaw, but the moral code of a Hufflepuff, undoubtedly." 

Before she can think too much about her acute awareness of Cormoran's inner workings, he crinkles the corners of his eyes up at her and says "all right then. What about you?"

"You're among good company," she tells him over the rim of her coffee mug. "A fellow Hufflepuff. I thought I might have been a Gryffindor, but the Sorting Quiz said otherwise." 

And she's certainly ballsy enough to be a Gryffindor, but – looking around the office – she knows she takes too much pride in her careful work, in a job done well and rightly, to be anything but a 'Puff at heart. 

Cormoran considers this for a long, silent moment. He watches her intently, eyes tracking the dust motes that shimmer in the golden sunlight, catching in her loose hair. Neither one of them really breathes, considering one another silently. 

And then Strike shakes his head and says "fucking Hufflepuff."


End file.
